RICHMOND -- This city with an industrial legacy may be poised to move ahead with some of the state's most innovative policies promoting urban organic farming and labeling of foods produced with genetically modified organisms, or GMOs.

The City Council on Tuesday approved two items directing staff to craft new city laws. The first, which passed unanimously, would provide local organizations that convert urban parcels into food-producing gardens with new "incentive zones" in which owners would benefit from steep property tax discounts, according to a staff report.

The second, which passed by a 5-2 vote, directs City Attorney Bruce Goodmiller to draft an ordinance requiring GMO labeling of food sold at local grocers.

Dressed as a "corn demon, " anti-GMO protester Ray Katsanes of San Francisco walks to the Golden Gate Bridge to join other demonstrators in San Francisco, Calif. on Saturday, Oct. 12, 2013. (Alan Dep/Marin Independent Journal)

"We have an urban agriculture movement in this city," said Mayor Gayle McLaughlin, who also expressed strong support for the labeling measure. "This is an opportunity to expand on that, and it's proven to be a positive image builder."

In recent years, Richmond has seen dozens of acres of abandoned, weed-choked urban parcels converted into small farms, often tilled by local volunteers and young workers paid by streams of private and public funding. The former World War II shipbuilding mecca and home to heavy industry is one of many industrial cities around the country to see a rise in urban farming, along with larger projects in places like Chicago and Detroit.

The GMO measure may prove more controversial, sparking fierce opposition from Councilmen Nat Bates and Corky Boozé on Tuesday and likely to elicit pushback from food retailers.

The GMO ordinance, proposed by Councilman Tom Butt, himself an urban farmer and devotee of organic foods, could require all food retailers regardless of size or where they get their products to label foods produced with GMOs -- identified as organisms whose genetic material has been altered to produce food more efficiently. The health effects of GMOs are subject to wide-ranging debate within the scientific community.

"Statewide, this may make sense," Bates said. "But for little old Richmond to try to impose these sanctions is a nightmare. Who will enforce this? How will we determine who has to do it?"

Last year, statewide ballot measure Proposition 37, which would have required the labeling of genetically modified foods, narrowly failed in the face of millions in campaign spending by agricultural interests. Richmond's City Council passed a symbolic resolution in September 2012 supporting Proposition 37.

"It lost in California, but (labeling GMOs) is a growing movement around the world," Butt said, noting that the European Union, Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand and other sovereign states have mandated GMO labeling on produce. "It's probably going to happen sooner or later (in the U.S.)"

Richmond's council has not shied from legislative firsts in recent years, but proponents noted that Berkeley in September directed its staff to craft a similar labeling ordinance. Goodmiller said he believed the city had the legal authority to impose labeling requirements on merchants.

Butt and McLaughlin admonished that staff would have to navigate a series of questions and unintended consequences, including who would be affected, how to enforce the law and what the penalties would be.

Boozé and Bates scoffed at being in league with Berkeley on the law, and complained that labeling requirements could exacerbate the city's long-standing problems with attracting full-service grocers.

Industry’s Secret Plan to Get the Feds to Kill GMO Labeling in Every State

With the disappointing results now
in from I-522, the initiative in Washington State that would have
required labeling of genetically-engineered food (aka GMOs), the looming
question is, what’s next? At least for the junk food lobby, that answer
in painfully clear: stop this state-level movement at any cost. In
today’s New York Times, Stephanie Strom reports on the dirty details contained in industry documents that I obtained from the Washington State attorney general’s office in the wake of a lawsuit brought against the Grocery Manufacturers Association for illegally concealing donors to the No on 522 campaign.

As I explained back
in February, the food industry’s ultimate game plan to stop the
bleeding in the state-by-state onslaught of GMO labeling efforts is to
lobby for a weak federal law that simultaneously preempts or trumps any
state-level policy. While we have known that industry would want to put
an end to the public relations nightmare happening state by state, this
document for the first time reveals the lobbyists’ specific strategy.

The details are even worse than I thought and give new meaning to the
word chutzpah. I had predicted a federal compromise, where industry
would agree to a weak form of labeling in exchange for stripping state
authority. But what industry wants instead is to stop state laws to
require labeling, while not giving up anything in return. In their own
words, the game plan is to “pursue statutory federal preemption which
does not include a labeling requirement.”Let me repeat that: The junk food lobby’s “federal solution” is to make it illegal for states to pass laws requiring GMO labeling. Period. End of story.

This is not the way preemption is supposed to work. A quick primer.
Preemption simply means that a higher law trumps a lower law: so federal
trumps state, and state trumps local. This is often the most
economically feasible policy approach for business. But it’s also
industry’s way of ensuring uniformity and stopping a movement in its
tracks. Here is the pattern: a grassroots movement builds over time to
enact local or state laws to protect public health or increase the
minimum wage, or some other social goal, and industry fights these
efforts for years, until they can no longer win. At that point,
corporate lobbyists either get their own weak bill passed, or work with
advocates to pass a compromise version. In exchange, this new law will
preempt or prevent any state or city from passing a different or
stronger law. It will also negate any law already passed. Forever.

But usually, there is some underlying legal requirement that industry
must follow for the concept of preemption to even make sense. The idea
is to require some action by industry, with the trade-off for companies
to follow one standard instead of 50. Take menu labeling in chain
restaurants as a good example. For that issue, there was also a
grassroots movement in both states and cities around the nation. So when
the National Restaurant Association had enough of fighting those bills,
the lobbying group agreed to a federal compromise to require only
calorie counts (a weak standard) in exchange for preemption, that is,
not allowing any state or local laws to go further. In fact, the Grocery
Manufacturers Association itself endorsed this plan.

But in the current GMA chutzpah scenario, the federal government
would outlaw states from enacting GMO labeling, while food makers would
not have to label their products. In other words, industry would stop
the grassroots movement and not have to pay any price.Now that the junk food lobby’s true agenda has been revealed, our
federal representatives and officials are on notice: The food movement
will be holding you accountable to ensure that this democracy-killing
power grab does not come to fruition.

You can read the entire set of documents from GMA here. Much of the text is redacted, a sign that industry has a lot more to hide.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

What Really Happened to GMO Labeling in Washington

Monsanto and the junk food industry teamed up to shatter Washington state records. They dumped more than $22 million into fighting against GMO labeling. Exactly $550
of the “no” campaign’s dollars came from inside Washington State. This
was a classic example of out-of-state corporate interests pouring
massive money into maintaining control of our food systems.And based on returns so far, it looks like a campaign full of misleading ads and laundered money may have done the trick.There are still hundreds of thousands of votes to be counted, and it
will be several days before we have the final results. But with over
half of the ballots counted, the “no” side was winning with over 54% of
the vote.The pattern in Washington has been very similar to what happened to California’s proposition 37 a year ago. Early polling found the initiative way ahead – consistent with national polls which find that a huge majority of the American public supports labeling of GMOs.But then the misleading ads started pouring in.The anti-labeling ads that blanketed Washington’s air waves recycled the same themes,
and even some of the same content, that had been found most effective
in California. They also included some extremely dubious statements.For example, the “no” ads told consumers that this initiative would
increase food prices by an average of $350-$400 per family per year. But
Consumers Union (publisher of Consumer Reports) determined that this statement was untrue, and that this initiative would not raise the price of food.The “no” ads told Washington voters
that Initiative 522 contained all sorts of exemptions and special
interest loopholes. And it is true that there were exemptions in the law
for restaurant and medical foods. But these exemptions,
far from being special interest loopholes, are consistent with
generally recognized labeling standards practiced nationally and
globally. Are we really supposed to believe that the “no” campaign
thought the trouble with I-522 was that it was not strict enough?The largest single donor to the “no” campaign, the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), is currently facing
a money laundering lawsuit from the state Attorney General. They
channeled more than $11 million into this effort, and tried to hide
their actual donors from the public. It would appear that companies like
Coke and Pepsi wanted to keep us all in the dark, but did not want to
face a consumer backlash so they tried to use the GMA as a cover.The attorney general’s lawsuit generated some degree of disclosure,
but the damage from millions of dollars in outside spending of laundered
money had been done, and the legal proceedings, which seek punitive
damages, will not be complete until months after the election is long finished.What the GMA’s shenanigans tell us is that a growing body of
companies fear consumer backlash if they oppose GMO labeling. Monsanto
may not care, since they don’t sell direct to the consumer anyways. But
with a lot of “natural” brands like Odwalla, Kashi, and Naked Juice owned by companies like Coke, Kellogg, and Pepsi, there is a growing fear that boycotts could hit their bottom line.The non-GMO certified food sector has grown from nothing to $3.5 billion in sales in just the last three years. Whole Foods has reported a sales bump of 15% to 30% when products are certified non-GMO.Consumer pressure, then, may be able to accomplish what ballot
initiatives have not yet achieved. If non-GMO products can establish a
stronger footing in the marketplace, and if companies (including
“natural” brands) face boycotts when they or their parent corporations attempt to keep consumers in the dark, then the tide could turn very quickly.Here’s an infographic highlighting some of the top companies that opposed, and supported, GMO labeling in the state of Washington.Labeling initiatives are underway
in at least 20 more states. Monsanto and the junk food industry may
have managed to keep Washington voters in the dark a little longer. But
it is going to be hard keep convincing the American people that we don’t
want to know how our food was produced.“Win or lose, this is a long war,” said David Bronner, CEO of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, the initiative’s biggest donor. “Labeling is inevitable.”

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Democracy Loses Out as Big Money Overwhelms Grassroots Campaigns

In Washington and Maine, a flood of corporate cash swings popular opinion on key ballot issues

- Jon Queally, staff writer

In two referendum battles that took place on opposite sides of
the country on Tuesday, the power of big money campaigns funded by
out-of-state corporate interests once again revealed itself by
overwhelming grassroots campaigns trying to champion a local common
good.From
Maine, where a small town tried to thwart a pipeline company from
building a tar sands export terminal, to Washington state, where a broad
coalition of consumer advocates and food safety groups called for
labeling of genetically modified foods—both campaigns won and maintained
the support of the local population... until the corporate money
started pouring in.Local backers of Washington's bid to pass the GMO labeling law, known
as I-522, were defeated by corporate interests that spared no expense
in the final weeks to overcome the strong support the measure had
received since the campaign began. As the Seattle Post Intelligencerreports:

The No on 522 campaign, at $22 million, was the most lavish
initiative effort — and likely the most brazen — in the history of
Washington state. It saw an unprecedented laundering of campaign
contributions. Supporters raised a little less than $8 million, a big
enough war chest, but were overwhelmed.

Though the ballot initiative supporters once maintained a 3-to-1 edge
over the anti-labeling side, that deluge of money—most of it used to
purchase expensive television ads leading up to Election Day—was able to
turn the tide. In the end, though some ballots remain to be counted,
the measure went down to defeat by an approximate margin of 55 percent
to 45 percent.As Jill Richardson, an expert on food and agricultural policy, explained
Wednesday in the aftermath: "Shortly before voters got to weigh in on
Initiative 522, polls pointed to a tight race but the consumer-friendly
measure still looked like it might pass." Then, shortly before Election
Day, opposition forces "ponied up nearly $5 million for last-minute ad
buys," delivering a win to corporate giants like Monsanto, DuPont, Dow,
Bayer, BASF and industry lobbyists at the Grocery Manufacturers
Association.In Maine, where a local zoning ordinance designed to prevent the
possible construction of a tar sands pipeline terminal on the waterfront
of South Portland, another grassroots campaign, represented by a
citizens group called Protect South Portland, was overwhelmed by record
funding supplied by some of the world's largest fossil fuel companies.
As in Washington, the money came in strong and heavy in the final, but
crucial, weeks of the campaign.As the local Portland Press Heraldreports,
the Waterfront Protection Ordinance (or WPO) was defeated by only a
slim margin in which 51 percent voted against, while 49 percent came out
in favor. That difference was less than 200 votes in total, however, in
a local ballot fight that saw the oil industry pour over hundreds of
thousands of dollars into the coffers of those trying to defeat the
effort.The oil industry was represented locally by the Save Our Working
Waterfront campaign which drew most of its backing from the Maine Energy
Marketers Association (or MEMA) and oil giants Citgo, Irving, and the
American Petroleum Institute.As the Bangor Daily Newsreports:

The campaign received large amounts of media exposure, as it pitted a
citizens group against a campaign funded primarily by petroleum
industry groups.MEMA far out-raised Protect South Portland, whose largest single
contributor was the Natural Resources Council of Maine. When cash,
in-kind contributions and loans are calculated into the equation, MEMA
raised nearly $600,000 in support, far outpacing Protect South Portland,
which raised roughly $42,000, according to financial disclosure forms
filed with the city clerk’s office. The imbalance prompted the
ordinance’s local advocates to decry the influence of “out-of-state oil
interests.”

As Protect South Portland organizer Robert Sellin told Common Dreams ahead of Election Day, the local spending by the oil industry was "completely over the top.""Clearly they have all the money," Sellin said of the oil industry's
outsized involvement in the local fight. "We are talking about some of
the wealthiest corporations in the world. They do not want a community
to stand up for itself. They are going to do everything they can to
squash our initiative and discourage other jurisdictions."

______________________________________

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Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Why Big Pharma Won't Stop Breaking the Law

The schizophrenia drug Risperdal was at the heart of government
investigations into improper marketing that stretched back more than a
decade. (Image: JB Reed/Bloomberg via Getty Images)Did you
hear that America's biggest drugmaker just agreed to one of the largest
criminal and civil settlements in U.S. history? No, you probably didn't
-- because news of Johnson & Johnson's $2.2 billion penalty for
illegally marketing one of its drugs was buried today in the business
section.Why is a major crime by such a large pharmaceutical company a ho-hum
news story? Because it's become a routine one. Big Pharma has been
caught breaking the law again and again in recent years, paying gigantic
penalities. Before this most recent case, Johnson & Johnson had
settled 14 separate cases with the government since 1991, paying a total
of $2.33 billion in penalties, according to a report last year by Public Citizen. Nine of these settlements occurred between 2010 and 2012. "You'd think that some Big Pharma execs would
be serving prison terms by now. Yet despite 303 settlements with the
government over the past two decades, not a single top executive has
gone to prison, much less faced criminal prosecution."And Johnson & Johnson is just one of many companies that has been
found to repeatedly break the law. Most of the big drugmakers have the
same rap sheet. All told, the report found 303 settlements over past 24
years with total penalties of nearly $30 billion. What kinds of crimes are we talking about here? Serious ones, in many
cases. In announcing the settlement with Johnson & Johnson
yesterday, Attorney General Eric Holder said the company --
and another firm, Janssen -- had pushed doctors to prescribe an
anti-psychotic drug, Risperdal, in ways never approved by the FDA.

The companies allegedly downplayed the serious health risks
associated with Risperdal – including the risk of stroke in elderly
patients – and even paid doctors to induce them to prescribe the drugs.

Think about that: A major drugmaker bribing doctors and putting
people's health at risk to make a profit. In other cases, drugmakers
have conspired with doctors to overbill and defraud Medicare and
Medicaid. You'd think that some Big Pharma execs would be serving prison terms
by now. Yet despite 303 settlements with the government over the past
two decades, not a single top executive has gone to prison, much less
faced criminal prosecution. In this case with J & J, the company's current CEO, Alex Gorsky,
led the sales and marketing division at the time the Risperdal episode
unfolded. You'd think he would be a ripe target for prosecution. Nope.
In fact, Johnson & Johnson didn't even admit wrongdoing in making
kickbacks to doctors as part of the settlement. Once again, we've seen a
de facto guilty plea without much acknowledgement of guilt. Remember, Johnson & Johnson is a repeat offender, with at least
10 settlements of criminal and civil charges in the past three years. So what happens when major crimes are committed and no actual human
offenders ever gets punished? More crimes are committed. As Public
Citizen noted in releasing its report: "For Big Pharma, Crime Pays."

David Callahan is a co-founder of Demos and now edits the Demos blog PolicyShop.net. David is the author of eight books and his many articles have been published in such places as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, and The American Prospect.

NEW Poll Finds Widespread Support for GMO Labeling As NH House Committee Prepares to Vote on GMO Labeling Law

CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE - November 5 - As voters in Washington hand
in their ballots today to determine the fate of GMO labeling in their
state, the issue of labeling genetically modified organisms or GMOs, as
they’re commonly known, is heating up in New Hampshire. This Thursday,
the New Hampshire House Environment and Agriculture committee will vote
on a similar bill, HB 660, to require GMO labeling in the Granite state.Consumer support for GMO labeling in the U.S. is wildly popular,
according to the recent political opinion survey of New Hampshire
registered voters on GMO food labeling conducted by The Mellman Group on
behalf of Food Democracy Now!, a grassroots movement of more than
650,000 farmers and citizens dedicated to creating a more sustainable
future for farmers and the environment.According to pollster Mark Mellman, “The survey found nearly all
Democrats (93%), Independents (89%) and Republicans (90%) in the state
of New Hampshire agree that they have the right to know whether their
food contains GMOs."VIEW THE STUDY HERE: https://s3.amazonaws.com/media.fooddemocracynow.org/images/Food_Democrac...“These statewide polling results are absolutely consistent with
national polling data showing that an overwhelming majority of citizens
want the right to know what is in our foods. When is the last time that
90% of NH citizens agreed on anything?”, said Gary Hirshberg, Founder of
Stonyfield Farm and Chairman and Founding Partner of Just Label It.
“The only question now is whether our citizen legislators will support
individual citizens rights over those of a handful of chemical
corporations who are trying to protect their profits.”"The numbers speak for themselves," says Janet Wilkinson, NOFA-NH Executive Director."The people of New Hampshire overwhelmingly support GMO labeling. We
hope the House Environment and Agriculture Committee members consider
this new information when they vote on HB 660 this Thursday."Thursday’s vote in the New Hampshire House will take place only days
after an important vote in Washington state, where voters are casting
their ballots in the hopes to pass the first successful ballot
initiative that would require the labeling of genetically engineered
foods in the U.S.Last year in California, Prop 37, a popular ballot initiative, failed
narrowly by a vote of 48.6% to 51.4% after an onslaught of $46 million
in negative ads from the opposition.The citizen-led movement to label GMOs is only picking up steam. For
the second time in twelve months, voters from California to Washington
will have gone to the polls in an effort to overcome significant
resistance from giant chemical and junk food companies who fear
labeling, despite the fact that they already label their products in 64
other countries around the world. This time around, companies like
Monsanto, DuPont, Pepsi, Kellogg’s and General Mills have spent $22
million in Washington, making it the most amount of money to defeat a
ballot initiative ever spent in the state’s history.However, this year, twenty-six states, from Hawaii to Maine and
Alaska to New Hampshire, have introduced legislation or ballot
initiatives to pass GMO labeling, with the states of Maine and
Connecticut passing legislation that goes into effect once four other
states pass similar bills. Experts agree, no matter what the vote
determines in Washington, the democratic movement for labeling will only
continue.“In a democracy, citizens have rights and nothing is more fundamental
than the right to know what’s in the food you eat and feed your
family,” said Dave Murphy, Founder and Executive Director of Food
Democracy Now! “All we’re asking for is a simple label, something that
64 other countries around the world already require to ensure openness
and transparency in our food supply. Without labels there is no free
market in our food supply.”As the new poll commissioned by Food Democracy Now! proves, the
movement to label genetically engineered foods has near unanimous
support, including a growing number of farmers who believe labeling
genetically engineered foods makes sense for them and their customers ."Customers are increasingly asking about how I grow our food at
farmers markets," says Earl Tuson, who farms at Red Manse Farm in
Loudon, NH. "People want to know about my growing practices and I'm
happy to tell them. They want to know about what is in their food so
that they can make informed choices about their diet and that of their
family, and they should have the right to do so. "

###

Food Democracy Now! is a grassroots community dedicated to
building a sustainable food system that protects our natural
environment, sustains farmers and nourishes families.

Monday, November 4, 2013

Zofia Haufman: GMOs – 5 Reasons why we NEED to know if it’s GMO

GMOs: 5 Reasons why we NEED to know if it’s GMO

Zofia Hausman, Co-Founder, Citizens for GMO Labeling

“It is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth.” Alexis de TocquevilleIn recent years, the GMO labeling movement has focused on America’s
“right to know.” It has served our cause well and helped to raise
awareness across all demographics. However, in the past 18 months,
ground-breaking peer-reviewed studies on the impacts of GMOs on animals,
human health and the environment have come to light and they are
shifting the playing field. Americans are now realizing that they need
to know if their food is genetically engineered.With mounting scientific evidence strongly indicating that genetically engineered crops and food products are unsafe, we must be able to trace and identify GMOs.
Without labels this will not be possible. Martin Dagoberto, co-founder
of MA Right to Know GMOs and Citizens for GMO Labeling, argues the
urgent case for our “need to know” in his paper “GMO labeling: An urgent case for state action on food transparency.” We list the five most important reasons why we “need to know if it’s GMO” here:

There is a growing body of evidence that the consumption of
GMOs is linked to auto-immune diseases, digestive disorders, infertility
and cancer. People with illness need to safeguard their health and
opt-out of the GMO experiment.

Federal agencies have demonstrated unwavering support for GMO
Agriculture; it’s up to the states to set the standard for labeling laws
before the federal government initiates watered down legislation which
may preempt more effective state-level standards and/or delay
implementation.

No labeling means no tracking of health impacts, no accountability, no liability. U.S. public
health officials are unable to recognize linkages between GMO food
intake and the many unexplained health problems facing Americans today.
Nor can the corporations who sell these products be held accountable.

Loosened regulations are now allowing for increased chemical
residues – the escalation of herbicide use comes at the expense of soil,
plant and human health and undermines efforts toward sustainable
agriculture.

Protecting the free market to prevent a global monopoly of the
food and seed supply. GMO labeling will allow consumers to decide if
they want to support the arguably reckless practices of particular
agricultural interests, and is one immediate step toward a more
informed, transparent and functional free market.

On October 21st, the European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility issued a statement
strongly rejecting claims by GM seed developers and some scientists
that there is a “scientific consensus” on GMO safety and that the debate
on this topic is “over”. In addition, ENSSER endorsed the need for
further independent scientific inquiry and informed public discussion on
GMO product safety and urged GMO proponents to do the same.“We feel compelled to issue this statement because the claimed
consensus on GMO safety does not exist. The claim that it does exist is
misleading and misrepresents the currently available scientific evidence
and the broad diversity of opinion among scientists on this issue.
Moreover, the claim encourages a climate of complacency that could lead
to a lack of regulatory and scientific rigor and appropriate caution,
potentially endangering the health of humans, animals, and the
environment.”With support from scientists around the world, Americans are
beginning to learn, through peer-reviewed analysis and study, that GMOs
do in fact present serious risks to our health. It is imperative that
the GMO Labeling movement arms itself with these findings and moves on
from our simple “right to know” to an escalated message of the “need to
know”. Our well-being, and that of our future generations, depends on
it. Yes on 522, the current GMO labeling ballot initiative in
Washington State, has picked up the baton where California’s Proposition
37 left off. Out of state support is needed – please click here to find out how you can get involved.

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Join us in the final 48 hours to stop Monsanto - Washington state votes 4 GMO labeling Nov 5th - Join us to win the Food Fight of the century!Dear K,I just got off the phone with the Yes on I-522 campaign in Seattle,
Washington and things are going down to the wire in this election to win
GMO labeling. Right now, Monsanto and the GMA's negative ads are
flooding the airwaves, attempting to deceive voters, but we still have
the edge.At this moment, thousands of volunteers across America are busy
calling Washington voters to tell them the truth about GMO labeling and
make sure they send their ballots in on time. The election is over this Tuesday, November 5th and we need your help today!We only have two more days in this campaign and we need to make sure that every vote counts!This week you can help turn the tide by making calls to voters in Washington state to make sure they’re not confused by Monsanto and the grocery cartel’s deceptive ads.Click here to make calls to help get out the vote for Tuesday’s Nov. 5th election so we can win Yes on 522 and win GMO labeling in Washington and beyond!http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/1064?t=7&akid=1051.160877.gcIbNpIncredibly, Monsanto, Pepsi, Coke, Kraft, Kellogg's and General Mills already label their products in 64 other countries around the world!After spending $46 million to defeat Prop 37 in California, these
same companies are now spending $22 million to kill labeling in
Washington.What are they trying to hide from the American public?THINK LABELS DON'T MATTER? Did you know that AquaBounty's GMO salmon may be approved soon?If you have any question over whether genetically engineered foods should be labeled, consider the fact that in the coming months the Obama administration is poised to approve genetically engineered salmon. And once approved, the world’s first GMO animal could appear on your plates without you knowing it.After genetically engineered salmon, what’s next?This week, the Yes on 522 campaign released a powerful ad to remind
us all what’s at stake if we don’t win GMO labeling here in America - see what ABC News had to say!

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/1065?t=11&akid=1051.160877.gcIbNpThe truth is, we all have the right to know what’s in our food and
corporations who profit from selling food to us and our families do not
have the right to hide that information from us.We shouldn't be a part of their grand science experiment!Please take a few minutes to help get the word out in Washington.Click here to volunteer to make phone calls to voters in Washington to vote YES on I-522.All you need is a phone and Internet. You can even do it in your pajamas!http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/1064?t=14&akid=1051.160877.gcIbNpThe I-522 Ballot initiative is simple, it will inform Americans
whether their food has been genetically engineered in a laboratory or
not and it has Monsanto, DuPont and the junk food companies running
scared.Together we know we can overcome the opposition’s dirty money
campaign - help put us over the top by making a call for GMO labeling
today!Here's to victory!Dave, Lisa and the Food Democracy Action! TeamFood Democracy Action! is a 501(c)4 allied organization of Food
Democracy Now!, focused on grassroots lobbying and legislative action.
Donations are not tax-deductible. Thank you for your support!

Seed laws in Latin America: The Offensive Continues, So Does Popular Resistance

The world’s agribusiness corporations are pursuing their attempts
to privatize and monopolize our seeds. Behind their efforts is a clear
goal: to make the age-old practice of saving and breeding seeds into a
crime and gain monopoly control over seeds. Latin America has not
escaped these attacks.(Photo: GRAIN)Much of this corporate activity is being carried out under the aegis
of an international convention known as UPOV, but not all of it – some
Latin American governments have come up with farm-unfriendly provisions
of their own devising, involving patents on biotechnology “events,”
health standards, marketing standards, certification laws, various types
of record keeping requirements, tax rules, the misnamed “good
agricultural practices,” research programs, seed market establishment
policies, and more.Eight years ago we wrote, “If we look at them today, seed laws are
all about repression. They’re about what farmers can’t do. They dictate
what kind of seeds can’t be sold, can’t be exchanged and in some cases
can’t even be used. All in the name of regulating trade and protecting
food growers! In this sense, seeds laws go hand in hand with
intellectual property rights (IPR) regimes like plant variety protection
and patents. The two kinds of laws – marketing regulations and property
rights – reinforce each other.”If anything has changed since then, it is that privatization
strategies have become more numerous, extreme, and ambitious. What the
multinationals and the governments were not expecting was the level of
the popular resistance that has emerged at the national and regional
levels.

What is UPOV?The International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants
(UPOV) is an intergovernmental organization with its head office in
Geneva, Switzerland. UPOV came into being with the adoption of the
International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants.
The Convention was adopted in Paris in 1961 and was revised in 1972,
1978, and 1991. The mission of UPOV is, according to the organization,
“to provide and promote an effective system of plant variety protection,
with the aim of encouraging the development of new varieties of plants,
for the benefit of society.”2 In UPOV-speak, “protection” means privatization.The history of UPOV is that of an ongoing and apparently limitless
expansion of seed company rights along with a concomitant shrinkage of
farmers’ rights and freedoms. The original convention only granted
property rights over varieties developed by the party requesting them;
it granted little more than an exclusive right to market a private
variety and did not establish specific sanctions. With its subsequent
revisions, UPOV now grants monopoly rights over “discovered” varieties
and the production, marketing, export and import thereof. In addition,
it allows property owners to apply for the confiscation of crops,
plantations, harvests, and products derived from the harvest. It even
allows companies to file criminal complaints, which can lead to prison
terms for farmers.UPOV 91 is the version of the convention now being imposed around the
world under the pretext of “protection.” However, it has been clearly
demonstrated that UPOV 91 violates farmers’ individual and collective
right to save seed for replanting and allows corporations to monopolize
biodiversity. These provisions give the corporations total commercial
control over seeds and knowledge that were once owned collectively by
whole communities. A further menace represented by UPOV is that it
accelerates the erosion of biodiversity by promoting varietal
uniformity. This is tremendously risky because uniformity can lead to
crop loss and greater food insecurity. Finally, seed privatization
hinders research and the free flow of knowledge.In Latin America and the Caribbean, the following countries are UPOV
members: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica,
Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic,
Trinidad and Tobago, and Uruguay. Of these, only Costa Rica, Panama, the
Dominican Republic, and Peru are currently applying UPOV 91.3

The bottomless pit of corporate ambitionThe seed laws now being drafted amount to the wholesale application of UPOV 91 and in some cases go even further. For example:

a) They allow for the privatization of
“discovered” varieties. Not only is this nonsensical from the standpoint
of intellectual property law (only human inventions are patentable), it
is absurd when applied to plant varieties, which are mostly the work of
many human beings over long periods of time. In other words, the new
laws allow companies or research institutes to take what does not belong
to them: the indigenous plant varieties developed by farmers. This
theft is facilitated by the absence of any provision in the laws that
would prevent varieties shown to be already circulating in peasant
agriculture from being declared “new.”

b) The theft becomes truly outrageous
where new laws grant property rights over “similar” varieties as well,
regardless of how long these have been in existence. In other words,
UPOV laws legalize retroactive theft. One such clause, included in
Resolution 970, put forward by Colombian Institute for Livestock and
Agriculture (ICA), touched off a farmers’ strike that forced the
government to withdraw the resolution.

c) Penalties for those who refuse to make
sense out of this nonsense are significantly increased. Not only can
seeds be confiscated, so can the crops, plantations, harvests, and
products derived from them. The offences are summary in nature, meaning
that complainants can avoid lengthy evidentiary proceedings and still
obtain the confiscation of the materials in question. Practical
experience provides good reasons to fear that the corporations will try
to scare farmers and peasants who dare to rebel by hitting them with
multiple complaints under these laws. The situation is exacerbated by
the option for the corporations to file criminal complaints, which can
result in jail terms for the farmers.

This is the heart of the UPOV laws. Some of them go even further: in
the Chilean case, the law initially gave enforcement power to the seed
companies, creating a de facto private police. The Argentine bill
creates a mandatory registry of “seed users” – meaning anyone who grows
food, for a living or otherwise.And the UPOV laws themselves are only part of the story.
Certification and marketing laws have been a central feature of seed
privatization campaigns in Mexico and Colombia. Brazil has turned to
marketing standards. In Argentina, the privatization of biotechnological
“events” is making unfortunate headway, while throughout the Southern
Cone, corporations are creating a parallel legal universe by forcing
their customers to sign royalty-bearing private contracts. Almost
everywhere we find credit and technical assistance policies being made
contingent on the use of seeds produced by corporations or research
institutes.All these mechanisms work together towards a single goal: absolute corporate control over seeds.Resistance is growing and spreadingBut Latin America is also where citizens have successfully resisted
many such attempts to take away their rights. The following is a rundown
of ongoing popular and peasant campaigns that have been key to the
defeat of these corporate machinations.ChileThe UPOV offensive in Chile differs little from what is taking place
in other countries. Various provisions facilitate the appropriation of
local seeds by corporations and criminalize peasants’ use of their own
seeds. Absurd situations are created in which companies registering any
variety as their own can stop people from using varieties “similar” to
it. And the threat of confiscation of seeds, crops, and plantations is
among the new measures imposed on peasant families who dare to continue
doing what they have always done.What the corporations and the government did not expect was the
societal reaction against these measures. The first act in the drama was
the passage on first reading, in 2010, of the UPOV 91-compliant Seeds
Act, this over fierce opposition by peasant organizations (especially
ANAMURI and CLOC-VC) and civil society groups.Despite this initial defeat, the organizations continued to raise
public awareness of the dangerous aspects of the act. As a result of
their efforts, by the time Chile joined UPOV 91, domestic opposition had
become much broader and more vehement. A group of senators appealed to
the Constitutional Court to declare Chile’s UPOV membership
unconstitutional. This initiative too was unsuccessful, but public
education efforts continued under the impetus of the widespread social
mobilization that has taken place since 2011.Today, rejection of seed privatization and the “UPOV 91” Act has
become a broad-based national concern which has, so far, kept the bill
from being passed. Under pressure from the US government, the right-wing
government fast-tracked the bill, attempting to push it through before
the opposition could react. This time, mobilization took place all
across the nation and involved high-profile marches, Internet-based
information campaigns, radio programs, TV interviews, information
sessions in rural communities and universities, meetings with religious
authorities, conversations and discussions with senators, and so forth.The impact of all this mobilization work was to break the silence on
the issue in Chile and to convince a majority of senators (21 of 38) to
vote against the bill. Faced with this new situation, the government
withdrew the bill, intending to postpone voting until after the November
2013 elections, when a number of its senatorial opponents will have
retired.At time of writing, in early October, peasant and civil society
organizations are continuing to mobilize to ensure that the bill goes
down to defeat.ArgentinaThe bill to amend the Seeds Act in Argentina is the
fruit of active lobbying by Monsanto beginning in 2003. It was then that
the company began to request “legal certainty” for its investments in
GMOs. Since the government of the day was not receptive to its
overtures, the company announced that it was withdrawing from the
country and would not introduce new events. In its battle to collect
royalties, Monsanto asked the European courts to stop whole shiploads of
GE soybeans from departing for Argentina because Argentina refused to
pay for the genes they allegedly contained. The courts threw out
Monsanto’s claim.At the end of the last decade, the government repeatedly announced
that it was going to table a new Seeds Act in Congress, but it was only
in 2012 that a radical change of official stance took place. In June
2012, President Cristina Fernández announced at the Council of the
Americas that further to conversations with Monsanto, the company would
be making new investments in the country, focusing on a GE corn
processing plant in the Malvinas Argentinas district of the city of
Córdoba.A few months later, in a joint press conference, Minister of
Agriculture Norberto Yahuar and Pablo Vaqueros, President of Monsanto
Argentina, announced the approval and launch of a new genetically
modified soy variety called “Intacta” (resistant to glyphosate and
insecticide) and an amendment to the Seeds Act to protect investors
“because of the high costs they incur.” A commitment was made to table
the corresponding bill in Congress before the end of 2012.Civil society organizations reacted immediately, and with even
greater vehemence when it became known that the draft under discussion
was being negotiated in secret by the Ministry of Agriculture with the
large seed trade associations and landowners. The call to reject the
Seeds Act amendments spread across society and was taken up by a great
many associations. It led to a range of oppositional activities,
mobilizations, presentations, and documents.An analysis of the leaked draft, obtained by its opponents, showed
that it includes amendments to the existing act (dating from 1973)
designed to incorporate nearly the entirety of UPOV 91 into domestic
law.The National Indigenous Peasant Movement, Friends of the Earth, and
GRAIN started a petition campaign which, by late November, had garnered
the support of more than 500 civil society organizations and 3,500
individuals.The document “10 motivos para luchar contra el proyecto de ley que pretende privatizar las semillas en la Argentina”4
reads as follows: “the bill does not protect knowledge or biodiversity;
it merely promotes privatization and protects property rights to what
is in fact the collective heritage of our peoples, especially the
peasant and indigenous communities. In this way, it puts forward an
unacceptable principle: that it is possible and acceptable to privatize
knowledge and various life forms.” It continues: “This paves the way to
further expropriation and privatization of agricultural and wild
biodiversity in Argentina. The bill makes possible the greater
privatization of Argentina’s genetic resources and native biodiversity
by expanding so-called plant breeders’ rights. In addition, it makes
illegal or gravely restricts practices that have existed since the
beginning of agriculture: seed selection, breeding, improvement, saving,
reproduction, and exchange based on the previous harvest.”The document concludes with a call to “reject this bill, which
represents a grave attack on every inhabitant of this country.
Agriculture fulfills an eminently social function, that of sustaining
and feeding the entire population. To jeopardize the food security and
sovereignty of Argentina by granting new privileges to transnational
agribusiness corporations is to take the road of surrendering our
national sovereignty.”Due to the broad-based rejection of the initiative, the bill never
made it into Parliament, and its opponents claimed a partial victory. In
the initial months of 2013, the Minister of Agriculture announced that
the bill would not be sent to Congress in an election year. However, he
soon announced (under pressure from Monsanto, it seems clear) that the
bill would be submitted to Congress right after the elections.In the meantime, Monsanto is keeping up its offensive by forcing
people who buy the new “Intacta” RR2 soybeans to sign an “extended
royalty” contract. Monsanto states on its web site for this variety5
that “growers wishing to opt, at their own discretion, to use soybean
seeds containing the Intacta RR2 technology must sign a limited-use
license with Monsanto for the technology.” This provision attests to a
very peculiar understanding of the concept of discretion that verges on
the illegal.Argentine civil society continues to monitor these developments
closely and to act accordingly. One important step is a blockade,
spearheaded by the groups “Asamblea Malvinas Lucha por la Vida” and
“Mothers of Barrio Ituzaingó Anexo,” of the intended construction site
for a Monsanto plant, which has been ongoing for three weeks.ColombiaIn April 2012, the Colombian Congress passed Bill 1518 adopting the
International Convention for the Protection of New Plant Varieties, thus
complying with its obligation to protect the interests of agribusiness
corporations under the free trade agreement (FTA) with the United
States.Colombian civil society immediately denounced the fact that the law
had been passed without regard for higher-order provisions and
international legal frameworks which obligate the government to
guarantee the rights of everyone under its jurisdiction and, more
specifically, to preserve the country’s food sovereignty and security.According to Grupo Semillas and the “Semillas de Identidad” campaign,
UPOV was ratified “without regard for the fundamental right of ethnic
minorities to prior consultation,” and its main goal is to achieve “the
granting and protection of plant breeders’ rights. The strategy begins
by establishing a set of conditions that native and indigenous varieties
cannot meet because their genetic improvement was the result of farmers
operating according to entirely different principles from those of
modern plant breeders. It continues by enacting provisions for the
protection of [corporate] economic interests and essentially forces
farmers to use these seeds at the behest of the transnationals.”6Based on this analysis, a number of organizations appealed to the
Constitutional Court and, in December 2012, obtained a decision
declaring Law 1518 unenforceable.7
In so doing, they halted the progress of UPOV 91, arguing that the
government had failed to consult the indigenous and tribal peoples in
regard to legislative or administrative measures affecting them
directly, as required by Article 6 of Convention 169 of the
International Labour Organization (ILO). While the threat of UPOV’s
approval still looms, the consultation process required by the Court has
yet to be put in place. This decision caused consternation on the part
of the United States, which asserted in the media its entitlement to sue
Colombia for losses caused by the Constitutional Court’s decision to
declare the unenforceability of Laws 1518 and 1520, since these laws
were intended to bring the country into compliance with the FTA.8During 2013, events related to peasant struggles put the fate of
seeds back in the spotlight. A documentary film, 9.70: la historia de la
semilla privatizada,9
by the young director Victoria Solano, sent shock waves through
Colombian society as people woke up to the impact of seed privatization.Resolution 9.70 of the ICA (Colombian Institute for Livestock and
Agriculture) dates from 2010 and is intended to control the production,
use, and marketing of seeds. This resolution applies the concepts of
intellectual property law to seeds and was passed as a requirement for
approval of the US-Colombia FTA. “The documentary analyzes the impact of
the resolution, focusing on the case of Campoalegre, a town in southern
Colombia where it was applied. In 2011, the ICA went to the town and
confiscated 70 tons of rice. It later returned with law enforcement
officials, and ultimately dumped the rice into a landfill, claiming that
it was illegal,” said the filmmakers.The powerful public impact of the documentary coincided with the
beginning of peasant mobilizations on August 19, which shook the
country. The peasants’ rejection of Resolution 9.70 became a central
component of their demands. As a result of these campaigns, Resolution
9.70 was “frozen for two years” – an immense triumph for Colombia’s
peasants and civil society organizations. However, the central demand of
the people of Colombia has yet to be granted: the outright repeal of
the resolution along with any attempt to impose UPOV 91 through other
channels.10VenezuelaIn Venezuela, a bill to amend the Seeds Act is making its way through
the legislative process and causing great concern among civil society
organizations. The situation there is complex because the initiative
inaugurates an intellectual property regime even as it takes the
salutary step of banning GMOs.The GMO-free Venezuela campaign11
has been monitoring this bill and has called for “a ban on transgenic
seeds in the country, a ban on any type of intellectual property rights
or patents over seeds, and an expanded debate over the bill with a view
to building an appropriate legislative framework in conjunction with the
revolutionary popular collectives and movements.”The bill’s proponents have stated in public that it will ban GMOs in
Venezuela, but the popular campaign has expressed concern in regard to
the “language of the bill, which continues to recognize plant breeders’
rights, does not clearly define the mechanisms that will be used for
surveillance and punishment of those who violate the transgenic seed
provisions, establishes a strict oversight regime for indigenous or
common seed, establishes sanctions that may result in the
criminalization of traditional seed exchange practices, and still lacks
mechanisms for public participation. We consider all these aspects to be
issues of concern to the popular movement in the continuing debate over
this bill.”The commitment to a broad public debate and the intense mobilization
on the part of Venezuelan social movements have opened up the political
space necessary for amendments to be made to the bill so that it meets
popular demands.MexicoWith the entry into force of NAFTA, a sequence of laws were passed12 – first the Plant Varieties Act (1996),13 followed by the Biosafety Act (2005)14 and the Seeds Act (2007)15
– whereby the Mexican legal system took a big step towards seed
registration, certification, patenting, and privatization. It is a clear
attempt to force farmers to use lab-created seeds and to criminalize
the saving and exchange of native seeds, even though these practices
have formed the basis of indigenous, peasant, and indeed the entire
country’s food systems for millennia.Although Mexico did not sign the 1991 version of the agreement, its
Seeds Act of 2007 explicitly provides for the criminalization of native
seeds by establishing arbitrary quality and “stability” criteria that
essentially amount to the freezing of varietal traits in time. It is as
if seed evolution itself is being outlawed, and farmers are being made
accomplices to the crime.16This law, along with the Plant Varieties Act of 1996 (enacted to
comply with UPOV) and its regulation of 1998, paved the way for the
privatization of plant varieties and breeding materials, as well as
for-profit variety concessions and sales under regulations highly
favourable to the corporations.In 2012, a vast coalition of peasant and civil society organizations
succeeded in halting the UPOV 91 amendments to the Plant Varieties Act.
The amendments would have had the grave outcome of granting private
breeders “monopolies to obtain exclusive profits from the sale of seeds
and other plant material for up to 15 years, or 18 in the case of
perennial ornamental, forest, or orchard plants – even when the plants
they used to develop the new varieties are in the public domain.”17
Genetically modified organisms were included pursuant to the Biosafety
Act, which was absurd “since GMOs are created by introducing genetic
material from non-plant species.”18The “reloaded” version of the Plant Varieties Act would have given a
key boost to the Seeds Act of 2007 in that it would have inaugurated a
seeds policy along with a search and seizure system for uncertified or
unregistered seed – absurdly termed “pirate seed” for lack of an
invoice, when these varieties have been saved and exchanged for at least
6000 years. The amendments to the Plant Varieties Act have been
postponed, but it would be a mistake to suppose they have been
abandoned.19In the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean, the situation varies
depending on whether or not an FTA has been signed with the United
States. This is the case for Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic,
which have had to change their domestic laws in accordance with CAFTA,
and for Peru, which also has an FTA with the United States. As for the
rest of the continent, while there are no active attempts to push
through UPOV 91, the general pattern of industry influence over
government continues, and we may well see a push for UPOV in the coming
months (e.g., in Paraguay).Resistance bears fruitIn the context of the ascendancy of agribusiness in the region, it is
surprising that resistance to corporate control of seeds has borne
fruit in nearly every country where campaigns have been mounted.In Argentina, the draft of the Seeds Act being discussed in secret
never emerged from the Ministry of Agriculture to be tabled in
Parliament.In Chile, societal mobilization helped secure a majority of senators to vote against the “Monsanto Bill.”In Colombia, peasant mobilization put a temporary stop to Resolution 9.70.In Venezuela, there are firm commitments to keep the principles upheld by Hugo Chávez from being betrayed.And in Mexico, societal campaigning prevented the Federal Plant Varieties Act from being revised for compliance with UPOV 91.This brings us to October 2013. We don’t know what will happen in the
coming months, but it’s clear that these wins do not mean the battle is
over. The social movements are well aware of the continuing challenges
involved with coordinating activities, raising awareness, and finding
new allies to fend off future attacks. If we are to defend seeds as a
heritage for all peoples, nothing less will do. We must all continue to
dedicate ourselves to the success of the Seeds Campaign of Via
Campesina.